Duplicity
by Random Flapdoodle
Summary: Reformatted. When Kabuto goes snooping where he shouldn't be, he finds something that he never expected...something that turns his fantasy to a nightmare. Rated for violence and a tiny bit of sexual content. Constructive criticism more than welcome!
1. Negligence

A/N: Well this is the start of my newest fanfic. Once again, constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

Japan uses the metric system, and the original Naruto probably does, too, I used it in this fanfic.

37ºC -- normal body temperature (about 98.6ºF)

2 kg -- 4.4 lbs

41.1ºC -- almost 106ºF

1 meter -- roughly 3 feet

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters in this fanfic (except Kenji).

* * *

Kabuto's head snapped up when he heard rattling from his lab. Every one of his nerves sparked, and his muscles drew themselves into tight knots. His eyes frantically sought the portal, and found it, a dark patch haloed in sick white light. He heard coughing from the realm beyond, and screams within his own mind.

His body began to quiet itself, and the coughing stopped. The screams faded away as well, and he was left with roaring silence, carried on waves of adrenaline. Even so, he listened for the sounds of the other realm, and watched the portal for movement.

When nothing happened, he smiled and went back to his reading.

---

The illness had come out of nowhere. It began with nothing more than fatigue and a decrease in appetite. Both Orochimaru and Kabuto had snidely dismissed it as one of Sasuke's moods. He had enough of them, after all, and he had recently failed to master a new technique that Orochimaru had been reluctant to teach him in the first place. That alone was enough to dull the heat in his blood.

The next day, Sasuke had not come out to train. Orochimaru had not been truly concerned, but he sent Kabuto in to check on him anyway. Sasuke had been lying in bed, semi-conscious and barely breathing. There was a puddle of thin vomit on the floor and the dinner he had insisted on taking to his room the night before sat gray and untouched on his nightstand.

That was two days ago.

Sasuke's fever had spiked the previous night, and he was now running a slightly high temperature. He was dehydrating rapidly, and had lost almost two kilograms in less than 30 hours. He'd been unable to keep even water down, and Kabuto had been forced to move him to his lab, where he could be hooked up to an IV unit.

Orochimaru had protested vehemently, screaming at and berating Kabuto as the medic had been transporting Sasuke to the sterile autopsy room (he had no inpatient facilities, and that room was the cleanest, anyway). Kabuto had been forced to give his master alprazolam to calm him down. At the time, frustration and bitterness had pushed aside concerns of side effects. Lately, though, Kabuto found himself spending time he didn't have preparing antidotes.

Earlier, Kabuto had gone in to examine Sasuke. He'd been disappointed with the uselessness of the antibiotics. On top of his fever, Sasuke had developed a troubling rash around the curse. The seal itself had spread a bit, covering most of his back and chest. The unusual method of expansion worried Kabuto more than anything. The curse had been designed to attack the head first, to burn away certain areas of the brain.

For the time being, it had bypassed Sasuke's head and face entirely, opting to travel down instead of up. In a way, this was actually a good thing. If Sasuke had developed a rash around his eyes, the precious Sharingan could have been damaged. In a way, the curse's failure had been his salvation. Had it spread normally, it was a distinct possibility that Sasuke could have gone blind.

But as it was, this was not the case. The curse had continued its trek down the boy's body. In another few hours, it would have reached his stomach. Kabuto had been worried about a gastrointestinal infection stemming from the superficial one. That could take less than a day to occur, and could lead to serious complications.

In all likelihood, though, Sasuke would recover before then. His fever spike had brought him to an almost life-threatening 41.1º C, but his temperature was steadily dropping now, and would soon return to normal.

Kabuto had been on his way to tell Orochimaru that Sasuke's condition had stabilized when Sasuke began to cough wetly. For a time, Kabuto stood in the doorway, watching his future master with glazed eyes. He had a lot of fluid in his lungs. If nothing was done, he might drown.

The thought of leaving the boy to die didn't so much cross his mind as consume it.

A sigh of disgust, and he went back to his lab to get supplies. As he was trying to intubate him, Sasuke awoke, and clutched Kabuto's wrists. He forced himself into a sitting position and pulled the dripping tube out of his mouth.

"What are you-?"

"Saving your life. Shut up and lay down."

Kabuto put a hand on Sasuke's chest and forced him onto the table. The pressure produced another bout of coughing. When it didn't stop, he put the tube aside and went back to his lab. He mixed up a saline solution, put it into a nebulizer, and returned to his patient. In one swift motion, he pulled Sasuke up and crushed the mask to his face. Kabuto's fingers groped for the nebulizer's switch, and he turned it on.

As Sasuke gasped and inhaled the saline, his coughing worsened momentarily. It stopped when he brought up a glob of blood-streaked yellow mucous. Some saline trickled down his chin as he collapsed back on the table, and lay wheezing. Kabuto turned away again, and began preparing a needle.

"If you try to put that thing on my mouth again, I'll kill you."

Kabuto didn't respond, and merely administered a slightly high dose of morphine, though the boy really wasn't in any pain.

He intubated Sasuke, turned on the ventilator, and left to find his master.

Uneasiness struck him, and he ended up sitting down at one of his tables only seconds after he had decided to leave. Perhaps it was the morphine dose. But he certainly hadn't given Sasuke enough of the drug to…kill him, had he? Of course not. He wasn't that careless.

No, it wasn't the morphine. It was…a memory, cold and aching. A memory that seeped into the present in a terrifying way.

_Kimimaro, nude, on the same autopsy table that Sasuke's fevered body now warmed. Fine lines of the cursed seal snaking around his torso, and slithering toward his hips. The swollen, festering patch of skin on his chest. Kabuto, dabbing antiseptic on it. Bloody pus oozing out and tricking down below Kimimaro's ribs. Kimimaro crying, screaming, hating his own diseased flesh, which would eventually fail at its only purpose. Sickness. Death. Failure. Kimimaro. Kimimaro. Kimimaro._

The curse had been spreading downward.

Kabuto glanced back into the autopsy room and saw a white-haired Mist child under a shroud. A white-haired Mist child who was at one time destined to be Orochimaru's next body. A white-haired Mist child who he had been unable to save. Chills ran through him like molten ice.

What if Kimimaro's disease was contagious?

What if some trace of it had lingered somewhere?

What if Sasuke…had caught it?

As talented a medic as he was, Kabuto had never been able to identify exactly what disease Kimimaro had been afflicted with. Orochimaru had done his best to forget Kimimaro, a gesture that Kabuto found oddly tender. Therefore, no questions had been asked, and all traces of the boy had been eradicated. At that point, Kabuto thought that it would be pointless to pursue his death any longer, and allowed his master's loyal servant to rest in peace.

Still, now it appeared that his failure to diagnose would come back to haunt him. Under normal circumstances, Orochimaru finding out his little secret would be bad, but not disastrous. He would be forgiven soon enough.

But now…to lose Sasuke to the same disease…

Although a name had never been put to it, Kabuto had strongly suspected that whatever Kimimaro had was congenital. It made sense, as Kekkei Genkai had been known to be self-destructive at times.

Antibiotics had done nothing; it could have been a virus. It also could have been highly resistant bacteria. Or lead in his water, or toxins in his food, or mold in his walls…the possibilities were virtually endless.

_Let's face it. You have no __**idea**__ what Kimimaro had._

Perhaps it wasn't too late to find out. Kimimaro's records, of course, were still on file. It was even possible that he had some old blood or urine samples stored away somewhere. Whether or not they were still good was another matter entirely, but still, it was worth some effort. He could conduct an entire investigation—

Start with the files.

He went back to his storeroom, where he kept the records of the deceased, only to find that the door was locked and his key misplaced. Cursing, he stormed back to his lab and ripped through the designated "junk" drawer. Under stained papers, broken glass, and countless pens, he found a ring containing a small gold key and a smaller silver one. He honestly didn't know if it would unlock the storage closet, even as he pushed it into the doorknob.

It was the right key, and the door swung open.

Kabuto didn't bother bringing a candle in, as all of the florescent lights in his lab were on, and would be sufficient lighting for his task. The key ring dangled idly from his index finger as he stepped into the storeroom.

Dry, stale heat gushed from the open door. Kabuto coughed, and his eyes watered from the dust. The room's climate had to be controlled carefully, as not to damage the records within. Orochimaru's base was usually cold and damp, and such conditions were not good for paper and ink.

Five filing cabinets lined the back wall like sentries. Kabuto looked around and sighed; he desperately needed a sixth, and possibly even a seventh. A number of piles of folders, bound together with wire, lay scattered among the cabinets. Worst of all were the shredded remains of paper in a dark corner. It appeared that the base had a mouse problem. In a way, that was all right. Kabuto had always wanted a cat.

He found the correct filing cabinet right in the middle of the others.

"K"

"Ka"

"Kaguya, Kimimaro"

He ran his finger along the key, not sure if he was imagining or actually hearing Sasuke's gritty coughs coming from his autopsy room. Either way, he knew that he might have underestimated the sickness.

Kabuto put the key into the slot, and saw the opening in the wall.

In and of itself, it was nothing grand, but its mere presence was startling. It was a clean slit in the stone, perhaps a half a meter wide and a bit over a meter high, residing behind the cabinet just to the left of the one he was currently opening.

The keys clattered against the dulled metal of the filing cabinet as Kabuto bent down to examine the opening. As a medic, he valued his fingers greatly, and was hesitant to stick his hand into a stone wall in a rodent-infested basement. He brushed the edge of the opening, marveling at its glossiness.

This room was not an abandoned one. Kabuto made it a point to visit the files of his former patients whenever he had the time. It wasn't something that he enjoyed: seeing all of his failures spread out before him, but history not remembered was often recreated. Kabuto wasn't eager to make the same mistakes twice.

So how was it that he had never noticed the gaping hole in the wall before?

Kabuto shook his head and stepped backwards. A few seconds later, he saw that something was off. The row of filing cabinets…didn't look right at all. His head began to ache, and he wondered if the past few minutes had been comprised of mere phantasms. Any minute, some unspeakable monster would crawl out of the hole, gnashing its fangs and brandishing its claws. Perhaps he had botched his daily diazepam dose as badly as he had botched Sasuke's morphine dose…

Or perhaps not.

Another few steps and a slight turn confirmed his suspicions. There was something wrong with the row of cabinets. He was sure of it, now that he stood parallel to his filing cabinets. The cabinet behind which the hole resided had been pulled out a few centimeters. The floor behind was a clean, vivid stripe, in contrast to the dirty stone on either side of it, and its front poked out beyond all of the others.

Someone had moved that filing cabinet.

Someone else had been in here.

In spite of the dry, prickly heat, Kabuto felt a chill caress his back. Nobody else had any reason to be in here. He had no assistant, and any other servants were forbidden to enter even the lab, much less his personal records room. Orochimaru stayed out, for nothing in the lab interested him, and the same was true with Sasuke. Kabuto's lab was exclusively his.

Besides, he had the only key.

Kabuto wondered briefly if he should just leave now, and not bother with Kimimaro's records. It might not be worth it. If Orochimaru was responsible…what could he do about it, anyway? It wasn't as if he could forbid his master from entering the lab. His master very well might have business in the records room.

_But what if it was Sasuke…? _

Yes. What if? What if that little brat had been rooting around in his files? Kabuto felt his ears and cheeks begin to burn. He would kill him. Orochimaru aside, if Sasuke had been poking around in Kabuto's files…he would die painfully. Strychnine? Arsenic? Cyanide?

As he lifted his hand from the ground, blood dripped from his knuckles. He had been pressing his fist against the stone floor so hard that his skin had been ground clean off. He healed himself, and paced about the room like a bull. Sasuke's imminent survival or death weighed heavy on his mind.

Rip that tube right out of his throat and strangle him.

Yes, and tell Orochimaru what? That he had drowned in his own fluids while left unattended?

After a few moments, Kabuto realized that his energies had been frightfully misdirected.

So someone had been in his records room? Even if it was Sasuke, so what? That didn't tell him what was in that cavern.

Kabuto shoved the relocated filing cabinet farther toward the center of the room. It screeched back, teetered dangerously on its edge for a few seconds, and then settled. He now had ample room to stand in front of the opening. Kneeling down, he rubbed at the edge of the hole again. It was obvious that no decay was responsible for its presence. It was cut smoothly, although the stone had been rounded with age. He hesitantly reached into the hole, and his fingers brushed against something cold and vaguely slimy.

With a grunt, he withdrew his hand and clutched it to his chest. He examined it the best he could in the dim light. There didn't appear to be any damage, just a bit of wet grime. Kabuto removed a kunai from his pouch and poked it into the wall. He tapped it against the object he had touched, and a hollow ringing resulted.

It was the other filing cabinet, the back of which seemed to be covered in mildew. Kabuto tossed the kunai down in disgust. He had panicked over a filing cabinet that sat benign right in front of his eyes.

He moved that one, too.

What he was left with was a deep opening approximately a meter in width and a bit more than a meter in height. Even the florescent lights from his lab were swallowed by the darkness. Cool, damp air slithered out from behind the opening, carrying with it the scent of mildew and decay.

All he could do was stare into the abyss.

To be continued… 


	2. Delight

A/N: The thing with the dates is really strange, so I should probably explain.

The Japanese Naruto manga began publication in 1999. I took that as the year the series started (as in, Naruto became a Genin in 1999 in the Naruto universe). Orochimaru is 50 years old at series start. Therefore, he would have been born in 1949. The year on Kenji's records is 1974, making Orochimaru roughly 25 years old.

Now, we know that Orochimaru left the Leaf Village 10 or 11 years prior to the series starting (in his fight with Sarutobi, he said that it was 10 years).

This still works, because we know that Orochimaru was doing experiments while he was in the Leaf, anyway.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters in this fanfic (except Kenji).

* * *

Instinctively he winced away, dreading what could crawl out of such a space. Nothing happened, and the hole gaped dumbly at him. He pulled a kunai out of his pouch, and flung it into the wall. It clattered to the floor almost instantly. The hole was obviously just that, and not a tunnel.

He went back to his lab, and dug through the still-open junk drawer. A matchbook lay right on top of everything else, but even after relieving the entire drawer of its contents he couldn't find a candle.

In fact, it seemed that there was no candle to be found in his entire lab. Kabuto knew perfectly well where he could get one…but he didn't want to leave the records closet in such disarray.

_Especially since Sasuke's alone in the autopsy room…_

He rolled his eyes at his own paranoia. He had just given Sasuke enough morphine to knock him out for…well, he didn't know exactly how long, since he botched the dose so badly. It was a fair assumption, though, that the boy wouldn't stir for a while.

That decided; he went to see Orochimaru.

* * *

He was never actually able to speak with his master, as he had been fast asleep in his room. Kabuto wondered if giving him that strong of a sedative had been wise. Perhaps not, in the long run, but for now it had actually worked to his benefit. He was too frazzled to confront Orochimaru.

Through some lucky poking around, he was able to find dusty candles. In the same place he saw a few matchbooks. After a moment of thought, he shoved two of them into his kunai pouch.

When he got back to his lab, he walked straight through it to the storage closet. Sasuke began to wheeze. Kabuto slammed the door to the autopsy room shut. He did not want to hear Sasuke's sniveling while he was trying to work.

Staring at the hole, he lit the candle and took a deep breath. It occurred to him that he should get a dust mask or some sort of protection. The last thing he needed was to get sick from some toxic mold or long-dormant bacteria. However, after having to run around for a candle, he simply didn't feel like waiting any longer.

The opening in the wall was low, and he had to duck down to get into it. In the back of his mind, he hoped that the ceiling in the hidden room was higher than the top of the portal, but he had no such luck. He was forced to remain in a crouch, and even then, his shoulders brushed the ceiling. The thought of slime coating his back brought about a shudder.

The chamber was empty, save for an unremarkable cardboard box sitting in the center of it. Slouching and dust-coated, it was a booby prize for all of his efforts. Even so, Kabuto was fascinated by it. If the box itself was any indication, the contents of it were old. Very old.

Leaving it alone was the best option, really, but curiosity prevailed once again. After all, he was a spy, and gathering potentially secret information was his life. Switching the candle to his other hand, he knelt next to it, and pried the rotted cardboard flaps away.

The box was packed tight with files and folders. Medical records, from the looks of them, although they were probably far from official. The folders were crumpled and bent, and no reputable doctor would have left them in such a state. His eyes brushed over unfamiliar names, scrawled messily on the tabs.

He picked up a folder at random. "Kosuke, Kenji." The papers inside were torn and yellowed with age. Kabuto leafed through them, his fingers running over lines upon lines of neatly printed analysis. The handwriting was his master's.

_April 15, 1974  
_**Name:** Kenji Kosuke  
**Age:** 17  
**Sex:** M  
**Height:** 175.3 cm  
**Weight:** 72.5 kg  
**Cell:** 186  
**Notes:** In suitable health. No kekkei genkai. Chunin from the squad of Kiyoshi. Excels in Ninjutsu; Genjutsu and Taijutsu abilities questionable.

_October 27, 1974  
_**Name:** --  
**Age:** 18  
**Sex:** --  
**Height:** --  
**Weight:** 50.8 kg  
**Cell:** 154  
**Notes:** Significant weight loss. Muscular reinforcement failed. Subject is no longer able to move major muscles.

On other pages were detailed accounts of the experiments, diagrams, and instructions for mixing different drugs. The papers were seemingly shoved into the folder at random, for between two consecutive record sheets, he found a quick summary of Kenji's death, written on what appeared to be a frayed piece of a shroud.

These were records of Orochimaru's experiments.

The dates of the records, scrawled quickly on the folders, varied immensely. Some were from decades past, some from recent months, some even indicated future dates. Kabuto giggled. His master obviously hadn't foreseen the acquisition of his own doctor. He rarely experimented anymore; that was Kabuto's job. The thought of working alongside his master in the lab was surreal and somewhat amusing.

But Orochimaru had done such things once. The experimentation required to develop Fushi Tensei had been staggering, and what he had found was probably only a small portion of the whole. Even so, that box contained the histories of hundreds of people, thousands of cruel experiments, hundreds of thousands of drugs and poisons.

What he was doing was dangerous. These records had been hidden from him. He couldn't imagine why, but they were. And that he was seeing them…he could get into a lot of trouble. He found that he didn't much care. This was all too interesting.

Orochimaru had never told him about the types of tests he had done, and Kabuto had never dared to ask. As a medic (and fellow lab junkie), he was intrigued. At the same time, he was getting a look into Orochimaru's life before he had entered it. This was a subject that had always fascinated him, as he often saw himself as an extension of his master. The fact that Orochimaru could have possibly existed without him was something that he had never been able to wrap his mind around.

Kabuto sat in that tiny, dark chamber for what could have been hours. He pored over the papers, drinking of the information found on each one as a vampire takes blood. He found himself wishing that he had taken another candle, instead of another matchbook, as the last parts of this session were read by the brief light of individual matches.

His master was a genius, pure and simple. Orochimaru's methods and ideas were strange and perverse, but revolutionary nonetheless. To actually come up with such experiments, and even then…to actually carry them out. It would take a brilliant, sick mind.

But for how godlike his master was, he wasn't very organized. Although the folders were roughly alphabetized, Kabuto could find no trace of order whatsoever in the documents within them. Stray pages were shoved between folders, and he could make precious little sense of these, for lack of context. Bloody fingerprints littered everything; smears of unknown fluids and greases joined them. This disappointed Kabuto, in a way; he was always one for neatness. Even so, he found it easy to overlook the poor condition of the files in favor of their content.

He had been in the middle of the ninth folder when he realized that he was supposed to be caring for Sasuke, among other things. Just how much time had he spent looking at these old records? A sudden panic struck him, and he shoved all of the folders and files back in the box. He prayed that his master didn't have some sort of obscure order, for now it was surely disturbed.

When he was back in the records room, he stared for a few seconds at the gaping entrance. His eyes flickered from the hole to the filing cabinets. After deliberating for what felt like hours, he moved both of the displaced cabinets back to their original positions.

Kabuto headed to the main compound. As he passed the autopsy room, he heard nothing, and broke into a smile that soon faltered. Surely Sasuke hadn't suffocated while he was going through those old records?

It would be wise to check in on the boy, and Kabuto did so, knowing that every moment he lingered was another stone in his tomb. A useless stone, as it turned out. Sasuke slept and was breathing comfortably. Actually, he seemed to have improved in the past few hours—

Best not to think of that.

He ran through the dark halls, mentally berating himself the entire time. Not only had he stumbled upon something that was none of his business, he had neglected—no—**abandoned** his master's next host. The consequences if Orochimaru ever found out were unimaginable.

Kabuto had no set destination; he was running blind. Regardless, he found himself in front of his master's bedroom door. He stood for a moment, wondering whether he really wanted to be there at this moment.

He knocked.

No reply.

He tried again, and got the same result.

A deep breath and he opened the door.

"Orochimaru-sama…"

His eyes took a while to adjust; it was even darker in Orochimaru's room than the rest of the compound. The snake lord insisted on using delicate tapers instead of the standard torches. The latter apparently gave off too much smoke, while the former, in Kabuto's opinion, gave off too little light. Dark or not, it seemed that his master wasn't in the room.

This worried him. Not knowing were Orochimaru was always made him nervous.

A low gurgling startled him for a moment, and then he realized what it was. His stomach obviously didn't care where his master was or wasn't; it clamored for food. Casting one more glance around the room, he left.

Kabuto went to the kitchen and set about the task of making…a meal of some sort, anyway. He glanced at the glaring clock and was alarmed to see that it was near seven-thirty. Fear placed a dark hand on his shoulder. Orochimaru usually wanted to eat around five. Surely he would have been looking for Kabuto for quite some time now.

As his mind fed on thoughts of his master, his stomach began to have second thoughts about food.

* * *

As Kabuto was making his dinner, Orochimaru stumbled into the kitchen. He yawned gapingly and blinked sleep-clouded eyes. Kabuto watched him for a moment, and turned back to the counter to continue preparing his meal. A sly smile crossed his face. His master had been napping, and it seemed that he had been doing so for at least a few hours. Orochimaru sat down at the table. When his food was done, Kabuto joined him.

"Good evening, sir. Would you like some dinner?"

He offered his own plate: thick slabs of glistening pork, an apple, steaming rice topped with oil and spices, and a few dumplings. Orochimaru peered at it for a moment, then extended his tongue to seize a piece of meat. Kabuto sat down next to him and, opting to use a pair of chopsticks, began to eat. His master finished chewing and frowned.

"How is Sasuke?" The tongue flickered out again, and the apple was gone.

"He's getting better. I just checked. His fever is dropping slowly, but he seems to be getting more stable." The lie was a risky one, but it would be worse to tell him that Sasuke hadn't been attended to all day. Besides…Sasuke might have improved since Kabuto last saw him. That had been hours ago.

Orochimaru visibly relaxed and his tongue crawled out once more, only to find that the plate empty. Kabuto had been across the room; he came back to the table with two glasses of water and sat down.

"So what's wrong with him? Do you know?" Orochimaru asked, attempting offhandedness and failing. Kabuto scowled.

"Yes. He's simply got the flu. A perfectly normal illness that seems to be interacting with the cursed seal in an abnormal way. It's a little concerning, but I think I've got it under control now. He'll probably be good as new in a few days," Kabuto explained. His master sighed and melted into his chair.

"Good."

"Did you ever doubt my abilities, sir?"

"Of course not. However, when I think of Kimimaro…"

Kabuto rose from his chair so abruptly that it fell to the floor with a clatter. One of the water glasses fell to the floor and shattered. In a moment, Kabuto was gone. Orochimaru shook his head and sighed.

Two days later, Kabuto was back in the hidden room.

On par with his own predictions, Sasuke had almost fully recovered. The curse had crawled back to his neck, and the rash had subsided. Only a light but persistent cough troubled him now. He was still on medicine, and had needed emergency treatment after a rough training session or two, but otherwise, all was normal.

Sasuke was more bothered by his lingering symptoms than Kabuto was, though. The pale-haired medic had found that forbidden fruit was very effective in distracting him. Sasuke and Orochimaru trained quite often, and Kabuto was left to his own devices. Naturally, he always headed straight to the records room and beyond.

For fear of destroying some unknown order, he had sworn to be careful about his snooping. He was, after all, a spy; this was something that should have come easily to him from the start. He would remove the folders one at a time, and he made sure that each went back to the same place it was found. The same went for the individual sheets within the portfolios.

There was always the chance that he would be found out, of course. Certain things could not be concealed: the movement of dust, and any wear on the box or papers. But these things were minor, and he would do his best with them.

He wasn't all that worried, anyway. Orochimaru had shown no signs of realizing where his servant had been. To Kabuto, this meant one of two things. The first was that Orochimaru didn't often access the records, in which case he was safe. The second was that Orochimaru didn't care that Kabuto had found them, in which case he was also safe.

However, a shadowy third scenario lurked. It was possible that Orochimaru had been so distracted with Sasuke's sickness that he wasn't paying much attention to anything else. In this case, when Orochimaru **did** notice what was going on, Kabuto could be in very serious trouble.

In response to his own concern, Kabuto had pointed out that no ninja lived a "safe" life, much less a spy. Danger was only a matter of degree. The idea had prompted a bitter chuckle. Life was very funny indeed.

_To be continued…_


	3. Ruination

A/N: I'd just like to thank all of my readers, reviewers, and those who added my fanfic to their favorites or alerts. It's nice to see that people are enjoying my work.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters in this fanfic (except Kenji).

* * *

The records themselves had proven to be well worth the risk he was taking to see them. Orochimaru's experiments often lead to a quick, messy death, but those that didn't had astounding results.

Kabuto had to wonder where these people were. He had gone through perhaps twenty files. Seventeen were marked "deceased." One of the subjects was still a prisoner; Kabuto had treated him a number of times for strange and seemingly random symptoms that his file had explained.

But what of the other two?

That these people could be walking around…leading lives…was shocking. Kabuto ached to ask his master what had become of them. His curiosity began to morph into full-on obsession. For him, such a thing was very dangerous.

One thing that this fascination brought on was a near-inability to limit himself when reading files. He had a tendency to lose track of time, and his first visit had been a staggering risk. Even so, he at least he still had the capacity to learn from it. In addition to candles and matches, he always brought a watch with him during his "sessions."

Kabuto decided that forty-five minutes was a reasonable amount of time to remain unseen. When those 2,700 seconds passed, leaving was always painful, if not unbearable. He craved this twisted knowledge like a lecher craved sex. It was never enough, but the price of full satisfaction was one that he was not yet willing to pay.

* * *

It didn't take long for his visits to affect his work. He'd gotten to spending almost all of his free time in that tiny stone room, poking though the old files. When his free time had been consumed, he began to leave his work lying unfinished on his desk. Later on, the work was not unfinished; it was untouched.

His lab, too, was suffering. Kabuto had always been neat, but the room had destroyed that particular quality. Beakers and test tubes never quite got put away, or, for that matter, cleaned out. Quite a few of them were ruined, as corrosive chemicals ate away at the glass. His precious scalpels grew a fine beard of rust along their edges. Although Sasuke had been removed ages ago, the nebulizer was still sitting on his autopsy table, dripping cold saline onto the floor.

Despite all of this, his secret was safe. Kabuto's lab was entirely his responsibility. Orochimaru left him alone in this matter. He was really the only person who could possibly know about the deterioration in his own habits.

Of course, there was always the chance…the tiniest possibility that one day Orochimaru might just decide to come down to find his doctor, even for some trifling reason.

Should that ever happen, the problem would not be the mess. Rather, it would be the fact that said doctor wouldn't **be** in his lab. He would be in a small room with a candle and a tattered box…

Knowing all of this didn't change a thing. He told himself that the damage had been done anyway, and to stop now wouldn't save him if he was caught.

The truth was simply that he couldn't stop.

* * *

His hands shook eagerly as he pried open the flaps. This strong of a reaction should have worried him. It didn't. A puff of dust erupted from the box, stinging his nose and eyes. In the dim candlelight, he searched for the tiny space he had left between his last-read file and the next one. He was so blinded that he didn't even see the risk in this practice. He wouldn't miss a single file. No drop of information would go unabsorbed.

Kabuto was nearing the end of the list, and it bothered him. What he had found last time was beautiful and horrible (as were the consequences; he hadn't slept for days afterwards). The idea that he would probably never have such an experience again hurt him in a deep, muddy part of his soul.

When he saw the letter "v," he knew the end was in sight. Although he would miss the excitement, he wouldn't miss the added tension. He would go back to his quiet existence as Orochimaru's servant and companion, albeit a little wiser. For better or worse, it was over.

Until he saw the tab.

It was exactly like all the others, yet more important. The quiet black ink that had oozed into the thick paper screamed and laughed at him. This patient still walked in Otogakure no Sato. He knew this particular patient very, very well.

**Yakushi, Kabuto**

Time ceased as Kabuto stared at the filthy tab that bore his own name. Dark pinpricks began to dance in his vision as he saw the bloody fingerprint over the first few letters of "Yakushi."

After a few moments of silence, he screamed and shoved the box across the floor. It hissed as it moved, then bumped the wall. The candlelight caught it smirking at him. All at once, something that had pampered his mind with sweet caresses sought to violate him.

Kabuto kicked over his candle, then stomped it flat to put out the fire. Hot sticky wax splashed his feet; he paid no mind. He had to get out. He had to get away from it.

It was over.

* * *

Hours later, his heartbeat still hadn't returned to normal.

He had left the room without pushing the filing cabinet back, without even closing up the records closet.

He had wandered around his lab for a brief eternity. Anything to forget what he had seen. Beakers were dropped from shaking hands; needles snapped by tense fingers. All the while, he kept looking back at the records room. He hurled a beaker at a wall, and cried out when it didn't break.

That was what eventually drove Kabuto to leave his lab.

Afterwards, he retreated to his bedroom, where he laid on his bed and examined his nude body. The sharp lines of his muscles were familiar to him, as was his fine body hair, and his scars. He desperately searched for something foreign, something that might explain what had been done to him.

Kabuto found nothing.

He dressed, and cradled his head in his hands. He was unable to decide which was worse, knowing that he had been experimented on or not knowing the nature of the experiment. His mind fluttered between the two.

What had happened…whatever it was…was past. Worry was senseless. But what troubled him more than the actual thing was the knowledge of it. Kabuto wondered how he could possibly face Orochimaru. More so, he wondered _if_ he could face Orochimaru.

He feared his master, but he feared the night more. What would he do when darkness fell, and the warmth of day could no longer chase away the monsters? Although they lived underground, the sense of night and day was a primal one, not to be diminished by such a slight thing as mere vision.

So what would he do when he lay in bed that night? There was no comfort to be found in Otogakure no Sato; he had learned that long ago. He would be left in his room, alone with his own heart and mind.

But Orochimaru would come first. It was mid-afternoon, and the snake would expect dinner. Kabuto thought it would be best if, this time, he waited for Orochimaru to come to him.

"Kabuto, I'm hungry."

Kabuto sat up in bed and fixed his eyes on his master. Orochimaru was clearly irritated with having to seek him out to get a meal. That was fine. The feeling was more than reciprocated. Nevertheless, Kabuto made an attempt to look contrite.

"I didn't know when you would want to eat. I haven't made anything yet."

"Hn. Well don't you think you should get on it, then?" Sasuke said as he stepped out from beyond the doorframe.

"Since when it is it my responsibility to feed you?" Kabuto snapped.

Orochimaru shot him a curious look, and Kabuto felt himself flush.

"I wasn't talking to you, sir. I meant him."

"I know. Regardless, Kabuto, you making dinner would solve both problems." He shrugged, and grinned. "Seems favorable, my dear."

A sweet smile crossed Kabuto's face. He wanted to kill the man standing in front of him so badly that his muscles ached. That saccharine poison, hate, was washing through his blood in torrents.

"I understand, master."

"Right, then. Sasuke, go see what we have." He gave the boy a little push, and Sasuke shot him a wicked look.

"I'm not your little call boy," he muttered, making his way towards the door. "I'm not like him."

Kabuto's heart lurched as heat flooded his belly. What right had that brat to say such things? He knew nothing of suffering. He hadn't been betrayed by the one person he trusted most.

As Sasuke closed the door, a scalpel appeared deep into the wood, right where his head had been not a second ago. Orochimaru giggled.

"I understand how much you must loathe him, but please try to restrain your homicidal urges. He'll be out of your hair eventually."

Despite his outburst, Sasuke was the least of his worries. And the only homicidal urges he was currently fighting were the ones directed at his master. For whatever cruel, depraved things had been done to his unwilling body would be returned a hundredfold as soon—

"Kabuto?"

Except…maybe nothing **had** been done.

"Kabuto."

Because some of the records had future dates printed on them.

"Kabuto."

Had his?

"Kabuto."

He had to check. He had—

Silence rang in his ears, as Orochimaru had stopped speaking.

He stared at Kabuto, almost as if waiting politely. Kabuto didn't know whether to meet his gaze or avoid it. He compromised by focusing on a spot at the base of Orochimaru's throat.

"Are you ready to listen to me? Or do you need a few more moments to plan exactly how you intend to kill my next vessel?"

"I wasn't—"

"Don't bother lying Kabuto. I fully understand your frustrations. I sympathize, in fact. He's…a bit more willful than Kimimaro was."

"Orochimaru-sama, please don't insult me like that."

"Hmm?"

"Perhaps you tolerate my hatred of your little prince, but you certainly don't understand it."

Orochimaru sat on the bed, then lay back and stretched his arms over his head. Kabuto leaned over him and smiled.

_How easy would it be to pin his arms and slit his throat?_

"What's wrong, Kabuto?"

Kabuto looked away, and Orochimaru got off of his bed.

"All right, then…what have you been up to lately? Your reports have been—well, I can't say sloppy because they have been non-existent. From this, I can conclude that there are two possibilities. The first is that you haven't been keeping records of your experiments."

Orochimaru had backed away from his servant, and now paced back and forth like a lecturing teacher.

Or an interrogator.

"I know that this cannot be true, because you could not work that way. Nor would you allow yourself to. Nor would I allow you to."

He fixed Kabuto with a look just blank enough to be intimidating.

"The other possibility is that…you haven't been doing any experiments."

He stopped walking.

"This is not out of the question. Sasuke has just recovered from his illness, and you might have been busy checking up on him."

He grinned, and leaned in toward his servant.

"But we both know that this isn't true, as I have been with Sasuke."

His smile faded.

"That leaves one possibility. You haven't been doing experiments simply because," he shrugged, "you just haven't."

Orochimaru was halfway right. There had been no experiments since he had discovered the files. He didn't have time for such things anymore. His fate rested on whether or not his master pursued the reason for his slacking off.

"If you were not doing any research, one would assume that you would spend less time in your lab and more time catering to my whims. As it is, though, you have been spending more time there."

Kabuto tried his best to look offended through his panic; that would give him an excuse to leave the room in a rage. What resulted, as far as he could tell, was a childish pout, but he tried to go anyway. Orochimaru grabbed his wrist.

"I am forced to ask, Kabuto. What are you doing down there?"

Panic coiled around his lungs and with it, the sudden return of his anger. He gathered chakra into his free hand and formed it into the subtle smile of a blade. The point flew toward Orochimaru's jugular vein.

Cold fingers wrapped around his forearm. He snarled as long nails stung the skin just above his wrist. The scalpel melted away. His anger did not.

"Let go of me, Orochimaru."

His master's eyes were wide and blank. Emotions as brief and intense as embers began flashing through them. Confusion. Anger. Realization. Cold amusement.

"So what is it that you really wanted?" Orochimaru's voice trembled on the edge of hysterical laughter. Kabuto peered at him, confused.

"What?" he asked in a barely audible whisper. Orochimaru sneered.

"What were your real goals? Objectives? You might as well tell me before you die." Kabuto realized at once what his master thought was happening. He relaxed his arms.

"No. Sir…Orochimaru-sama, I…" It was Orochimaru's turn to be confused. He stared at Kabuto's limp arms, and saw the subtle gesture of submission for what it was. After but a moment's hesitation, he released his servant's hands and left the room.

Kabuto grinned shakily. Sweat dampened his entire body in a sick coat, but his secret was safe as could be. For now.

That night, Sasuke refused to eat dinner with them. He took his meal to his room, and neither Orochimaru nor Kabuto objected. Throughout the meal, they didn't look at each other, and didn't speak.

After dinner, Kabuto cleaned up and went straight to bed.

_To be continued…_


	4. Paroxysm

A/N: This chapter is basically the reason for the "mild sexuality" warning. It's not even sex, really.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters in this fanfic (except Kenji).

* * *

He awoke at 2:17 the next morning in a cold sweat, as if being pulled from some bloody nightmare. His heart hammered in his chest, and his fuzzy mind couldn't quite remember what he had been dreaming about, or why he was so terrified.

Kabuto determined that the cause of his anxiety lay not in his dreams but in his own lab and in his own file.

The experiment that had been or was to be.

It was as if nature had stirred him for this purpose. Awakening as a ninja, he slipped out of bed, and allowed his feet to touch the floor only lightly. Perhaps nature had awakened him, but drive and training urged him on.

None of the torches in the base were lit at this hour, and Kabuto could no more risk lighting them than he could risk going to the room during the day. Orochimaru was a light sleeper and it didn't take much to wake him.

That was, of course, assuming that Orochimaru was even asleep. Kabuto was well aware that his master had been suffering from insomnia lately. Taking sedatives for an extended period of time could result in dependence, and Orochimaru hadn't had any today.

So to be entirely safe, he had to rely on touch. He knew his home well by now, but nothing in the base remained constant. Orochimaru's pets could be about, and if they found him wandering, they would alert his master. The snakes hated him, and would relish his punishment.

He crept along, keeping both hands on the floor, and one knee against the wall. Every once in a while, his knee would fall inward, indicating a door. Each time this happened, he gasped and jumped a bit, and once, it almost caused him to fall over.

Kabuto became aware that he was approaching his master's bedroom. He moved more toward the center of the hallway, as an extra precaution. Pushing it inward could make noise, and noise was one thing he didn't need now.

His knee bumped against the doorsill. Then…nothing. His trip became a precarious balancing act; to fall outward was death, and to fall inward was quicker death. He slowed his pace, using short, gentle steps. Kabuto found that he had to resist sighing when his knee hit wall again.

That past, he sped up, though not enough to cause recklessness. Or so he hoped. He was a distance from Orochimaru's bedroom, but that did not warrant pounding about.

Regardless of the danger, he was unable to quiet his body. His breathing was reduced to short snuffs, and his heart shook the walls. He became very aware of his existence: knee brushing rock, bare feet shuffling on wood, sticky sweat pouring down his back. Mostly, though, he felt a warm throbbing in his groin. It sickened him that somehow this was-

CRUNCH

* * *

The object on which he stepped thrashed, and he felt hot sparks being driven into his ankle. A low, gurgling hiss vibrated against his skin, and something strong and thick whipped his thighs and buttocks.

In trying to shake whatever it was off, Kabuto lost his balance and fell towards the wall. As it happened, the particular door that he had fallen into was not fully closed. When his body hit it, it swung open and sent him flying into the room. He heard another crunch as the ankle with his attacker smashed against the frame, effectively crushing it a second time.

Kabuto kicked out and rolled over onto his stomach, splashing his eyes with sweat-soaked hair. The snake dropped off of him, and lay still on the floor, breathing in a wet, bubbly way.

As he pushed himself to his feet, he rubbed his ankle where its fangs had been, ignoring the sticky blood on his fingers, and not bothering to wonder whether it had been venomous. Grimacing, he pushed the dying snake aside with his foot. That was something he would have to explain tomorrow.

This didn't worry him, as he wasn't sure there would **be** a tomorrow. Surely the racket he'd caused would have awakened Orochimaru. There was no way it wouldn't have. On top of that…he thought that he had heard another snake skulking around.

He was a dead man, but his training urged him onwards. With no life ahead of him, he could claim the knowledge that he sought, without worrying about consequences. Death, in this case, was an incomparable safety net.

Kabuto found this rationale empowering, and began to not walk, but _trot_ down the corridors. His bloody hands caked with dust as they dragged along the walls. A wild joy filled him; he wished to laugh and scream like a madman. He had enough sense, however, to realize that doing such a thing would get him killed too soon. Before he died, he had to know what had happened to him. There was no longer an "if." Some terrible experiment had been performed on his helpless body, and someone was going to pay. Oh yes, even if he was killed in the process, someone was going to pay.

Kabuto flung the door to his lab open, paying little mind to the crash the action produced. He was far away from his master's room, and so close to his destination that he couldn't be interrupted.

At this point, he could have had light, but he refused it anyway. He had survived this long without it, and the light might have ruined everything.

As he entered the records room, his mind shattered. Kicking both filing cabinets over, Kabuto rushed into the dark chasm, forgetting that the opening was only about a meter high. He knew that it was low, but didn't duck quite enough to avoid smashing his forehead against the lip of the opening.

He yowled and stumbled backwards, tripping over one of the fallen cabinets, and stabbing its edge into his lower back. He lay there, panting and blinking bloody sweat out of his eyes.

His former ecstasy drizzled out of him. It was replaced by dull, bitter fury. What good would it have done do go in the dark? Sure, he could find the room, and perhaps even the box, but he wouldn't have been able to read the report.

Kabuto rose, and fell against the cool wall. Blood and sweat slimed his face, and he wiped it impatiently. He fumbled into his lab and lit a candle with twitching hands. For a moment, he held it, watching hot wax drip and run like tears.

He re-entered the records room and sneered at the fallen cabinet. He swung his foot out and kicked it, leaving a sizable dent in one side. That drawer probably wouldn't open anymore. Kabuto leaned into the other room, just wanting this horrid night to be over. Death didn't await him in the morning; that had been a laughable delusion. Orochimaru would simply be told that a prisoner had escaped during the night. He had done some damage, but nothing serious. If Kabuto didn't feel like healing his wounds, he would say that the prisoner had given him some trouble.

Now, he had only one concern.

Before he dropped the candle, he had squeezed it hard enough to break it in half. Now the two pieces, joined by a string of wick, lay like beaten animals in the center of the hidden room. The wick on what had been the top of the candle still smoldered, casting a hazy glow.

The box was gone.

* * *

"Well, sir, it seems that one of the prisoners escaped last night. I heard a noise in the hallway, and came out to check. I was able to startle him, but he startled me almost as much." A bashful grin and a laugh. Orochimaru raised an eyebrow.

"It was a bit of a struggle before I could kill him. I eliminated the body…well, I didn't want you to know about it." Downcast eyes.

"But you forgot the snake?"

"I didn't know about the snake. I didn't take a candle with me, for fear of making myself too obvious."

"You think you can see in the dark, do you?" Orochimaru hissed.

"I…I know the compound well enough…" His thighs ached. He had done entirely too much crouching last night, and his current kowtowing wasn't helping.

His master waved impatiently. "Yes, yes, go on."

"Subject killed, no major damage—"

He saw the look on Orochimaru's face and stopped short. Orochimaru rose from his chair and studied Kabuto. With the gentleness of one bearing bad news, he put a hand on his medic's shoulder.

"Kabuto…have you seen your lab lately?"

An expression of honest puzzlement. "No, sir."

"Nothing was left intact. Even the tables were smashed to pieces. You won't be doing much in there anymore."

Kabuto considered this quietly.

"The autopsy room was the worst. Every one of your scalpels was buried into the table. I doubt that even they can be salvaged. The blades are too damaged," Orochimaru continued. Kabuto's shoulders drooped.

"I have good news for you, though. I found these yesterday," his master said. From behind his chair, Orochimaru produced a tattered box, stuffed to bursting with manila folders. He set it on the floor in front of Kabuto.

"These are records of all my old experiments. I thought you would enjoy looking through them with me."

Kabuto smiled up at him and nodded. "Very much, Orochimaru-sama."

Every night for the next two weeks, Kabuto would come to his master's bedroom. They sat on the bed together, discussing and analyzing the experiment files. Kabuto listened as Orochimaru explained, and neither could suppress his enthusiasm. They spent more time together than they ever had before, and Orochimaru was relatively truthful about his work.

Still…the experience wasn't completely honest.

There was one file missing from the box.

_End_

* * *

Well, that's it. Feel free to comment, criticize, or ask questions. PM or review, whichever you find more appropriate.

Thanks for reading!


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